Wednesday, 2 June 2010

Penmaenmawr to Puffin

A glorious morning and the forecast was looking good, met Dave for the first time and Chris joined us again in a demo Scorpio and kit from Peter, Guy also joined us. A pleasant paddle across although it started to pick up on the North East corner of the Island. Its very shallow along there and the wind had also started.All did well and some encouragement was given, disappointingly only a few seals and one dead one spotted by Dave.Great to see the Puffins and they were still feeding/nesting.Met a large group going the other way around the Island.Landed for lunch met by Peter and a friend.Whilst there it was evident that the wind had picked up making the sea fairly bobbly and the flow was picking up between the Island and Penmon.We set off for the return journey but with the wave direction headed off towards the Ormes.The seas quickly picked up and a couple of the guys understandably were out of their comfort zones.We made the decision to land at Penmon which was,nt as easy as we thought. The sea had now picked up with a big flow and the wind had certainly made the area interesting.It was a testing 10 minutes and luckily all landed safely.Some debate, priorities and John had the kettle on and as Peter had left earlier and was parked further up there was a chance to try and blag a lift back to do some shuttles with the cars.A couple were adamant that they were not happy with the conditions which was a good choice and there was no Chinese Court of debate.Finally managed to get hold of Pete who kindly gave a few a lift for the cars.How frustrating as the Straites were calm as we headed towards Beaumaris and even better lovely flat seas at the launch. Dave and Chris had decided to paddle back and when we arrived at Penmon we could see them in the distance, they had a windy and a sightly bumpy trip back.Oh yes the guy at Penmon was a s flexible as steel insisting we paid the toll just to pick the boats up what an inflexibly jobs worth prat.A testing afternoon but as Clint Eastwood said "a man needs to know his limitations" and more importantly safety comes first.

A very big thank you to Peter for the lift although we had cards and money a taxi would have been an arm and a leg appreciated his kindness.